She Had Something to Say

I’ve spent more than two decades telling other people’s stories. SaidShe is where I finally put my own name on what I think—and invite interesting women into the conversation. Money, ambition, luxury, work, culture, technology, getting older and everything we’re actually talking about when nobody is trying to turn it into an empowerment slogan.

I have made a career out of other people's stories, which I love.

I'm nosy by nature. I like asking questions. I like meeting people who know things I don't and finding out how they got there. I can happily spend an afternoon talking to a chef about why he still makes something the same way he did 30 years ago, or fall down a completely unnecessary rabbit hole because someone casually mentioned an obscure artist I'd never heard of.

It's probably why I fell into journalism.

I've also spent many years on the other side of the conversation. I ask the questions and edit the answers. Eventually, I decide what makes the cut, what needs another paragraph and what sounded much better in someone's head than it does on the page.

What I haven't done nearly enough is put my own name on what I think.

SaidShe is my attempt to change that.

I've been circling this idea for years, but I always opted for the safer lane—telling someone else's story, building someone else's brand, exhausting my creativity and valuable connections, only to find myself sidelined in the end.

I'm not sure exactly what changed, or when I finally decided I'd had enough of that particular pattern. Maybe it's age. Maybe it's experience. Or maybe I've finally figured out that most of those lanes I was so careful to stay in were always shifting anyway.

For more than two decades, I've written about luxury, travel, food, relationships, culture, business, people, places and some things so absurd that I'm still surprised someone paid me to do it.

And I like all of it. The variety suits me. I've never been particularly good at choosing just one thing. I don't want to choose between Dior and YSL, and frankly, I don't see why I should have to.

The women I find most interesting aren't particularly interested in choosing either. They've built careers, businesses, families, friendships and lives that don't fit neatly into a single description. They've reached a point where they know what they're good at, what they want and, perhaps more importantly, what they're no longer willing to tolerate.

Those are the women I want to spend time with. And that's what I want SaidShe to feel like.

I want to talk about women and ambition without turning everything into an

empowerment slogan. I want to talk about luxury without pretending expensive automatically means good. I want to talk about getting older without using the phrase "aging gracefully," because I have absolutely no idea what that means and suspect it involves traveling in an RV and growing cucumbers.

I want to talk about money, work, taste and technology. The things women actually talk about when nobody is trying to turn the conversation into content.

Although, admittedly, I am now turning it into content.

So there's that.

Maybe SaidShe will eventually become something entirely different from what I imagine today. I hope it does. The best things I've worked on usually have.

For now, it's a place to say what I think, hear what other women have to say and see where the conversation takes us.